My father subscribed to life magazine. Life magazine in the sixtys was a really fantastic magazine. In her incredible pictures and you know its a picture magazine. There was this spread from the renaissance. Series of newts. That really grabbed you know that really grabbed me. Ill go behind the armchairs a lie on my tummy and i was in the book being abroad so i just. Copy and copy it over and over again you know it was essential. This excitement about. Well. Hasnt changed much to be. That is something which which i think you both lose then are published but being thing. I thinking is bananas i think thats my favorite this one here i think i think i like this one best. I like the lead of to been on the side of. And tangled in each other you know its like gloat spin on all friend. But yet you know do seem to. Comfortably on the table. You know sometimes when youre in a hurry to take your clothes off you know. Not very often now that both my parents are gone i dont come down very often. Its not the same family house anymore but i think its done it was job of building the house in that kind of like same spirit the front doors were never close in our house except as not. We used to have lots of around the country jumble trees and all that thats all gone but in his plantation lots of green it looks like a jungle now from the outside. I thing the only. Advantage of being a boy in the family is that you know in a traditional house i dont get to do any housework. I mean get back to my sister tomorrow we know. He will never climb there im with entry and think there im going down because he was busy drawing all the time you know he just locked himself up in the bedroom and just draw you know while i was the one who had to climb the tree split the room with you know and then sought the room with hands out and distribute them to the neighborhood. Hopes and aspirations. And you know or adopt i mean of course at that time nobody thought that you know being an artist you know you could make money from being and i and of course my mother was worried you know because hes the boy hes supposed to have to support the family. I knew that when i was growing up i was extremely rebellious my parents very religious my mother had someone come to the house to instruct me to teach me but i kept questioning him you know where to go or. Of course he come im sorry but. In the end he left you know. He just didnt come by any more i think he was by i mean. All the friends around the neighborhood. Used to run around together you know so my friends had a small goal. Is no go out. And you run home and. Sit in the other mother will tell me when i get a beat to get. To. Two of my favorite christmas. Chrysis. Additionally some illegal weapon this season is in carvings. Which dates back like a thousand years before people forging the crease. See how beautifully cough it is. Its a killing tool yeah its meant to kill it is. Something that is. Dangerous but at the same time beautiful the blade is for a what we call. A blacksmith but hes not an ordinary. Blacksmith. Really. Is a spiritual person you know he goes through various rituals its almost like a priest he strives to put the spirit into it into the mantle people sometimes nowadays look down and cross you know because the thing its. You know. But for me kerry. History thats history. You know the people. In my father very interesting way of introducing things to the children. There was a time i think. He felt it was time to draw and. Each one of us had drawing blocks and i remember that. And my sister and i were just. By my brother just. Drawing. Him. Because you have. To make. Me. Me be something. He was not like war he didnt do well in school you know who were around the house and say i dont need to study ive got talent i dont need to study ive got talent. It was very lucky when he went. There was i to. Rather than fine not because. Being a fine you know. I think you might not make money the intention was always you know after the foundation is closed to go into fine arts because thats what i wanted to be you know. But then again you know theres voices from my sister and my mother and saying you know youre going to you know its really becoming i. Mean the you know. What did you think design and. I went into design. School i went into the commission. I was working as a street. As a designer. And i was working on a lot of big up lines you know Like Singapore Airlines but the respond we shouldnt go for. Every week ill make maybe two or three trips to singapore to get briefs. But i didnt like the nine to five life you know i find it very difficult some women conform to that. There be meetings at the meeting easy nobody changes. When you do a piece of work. Or not you will be here all day and have a ties are used to put up. Behind. Really intelligent people to say. I was doing really well but i was im happy. I just got tired of it all so i quit going up with every thousand and. Ninety one. And i started thinking. Probably the most critical moment was this decision to go back to your home town i just got married a year earlier my wife was expecting also a style. I wouldnt know whether i would make it as a painter. And went back to jamie and i stayed at the back of my mothers house my mother fed me. There was no way my money i was almost penniless. First printing didnt work the second painting didnt work either until one day i buy a coincidence i met a friend who. Who knew. Where the senior artists in malaysia deflective meet him he said do something as simple as possible dont think too much so thats how it is still life paintings came about and i think id be more simpler than the still life. And he was a very bold statement to make because in the one thousand nine hundred who was being still like nobody was being still like and he was somebody who came and said look im going to stand in the shadow of the masters and words within that tradition yet with a great deal of eccentricity and a lot of quotes and of course that he has a great deal of humor hes a humorous person himself. So. I did the whole series of still lives of. Crudes to me there is compromising positions. Thats where the work. Started selling. For a while it became. My trip my. Ive always read. Through this to live on and off you know i might do three. To four pieces a year. Always like a. Book a long love affair with critics will be more like cookies. I dont want to call this. But its a very family looking figure. This side of the shop and i thought it looks nice i was looking for a small object actually to put this big thing on the know something feel almost invisible. The first stages of painting is always very technical. At this moment. Im just getting. To get to grips with the form of the whole thing. So i might not be too concerned about. There are. You out before you kind of get to. The notion of a form in the western context and the notion of form and its been gone. Quite different you know within the western context for me. Its something which is totally physical. Looks like a surplus. All those working in the still lives you know but my real interest was. Over human figure. I mean certainly in the context of mesa and there are conservative muslims you know middle sized muslims who feel that to draw a figure is against the teachings of islam. I dont actually. I think what interests me was not the act of smoking the smoke from the cigarette it was covering the persons face. It wasnt a physical miles but it was a psychological. The works after their took on a different dimension. There was a period when zack is on the meter you know i am actually did not teach to figure drawing because of the influence of a politicized islam at the school. When i was a student one of the assignments we had. After history was to copy a painting by an old master. The painting that i chose to copy was it was christ on the cross it was this affection. For the music because you know because its such a foreign notion. I was always intrigued. I mean. Religiously made doesnt matter whether its just charity or buddhism or hinduism. His journey all these excavations have taken him into a part of both the millennium Southeast Asian pop past that todays very contentious which is basically the very vibrant and still very vital please let me pass influenced by hinduism and buddhism hes painting a buddha hates for example the malays didnt go. Read off the air please allow me to be should be rationalized and there was a process of a metamorphosis in which such views let me believe. Very nicely with more mystical trends in the slum and the malays were mystics. And that has been the experience of islam for all these centuries up to very recent times in the past forty or fifty years. The challenge of. Pewter technical islam has been a more recent one. The rise of wahhabi islam terrorism al qaeda is a nine eleven is them you know bush reactionism all these kinds of things we understand islam within that within the prison islam has. So many dimensions. In which people can operate in gravity and i will it is our reductionist approach not just by non muslims but increasingly by muslims that islam is exclusively and its this aspect of islamic law what can and cannot be done dominate everything and at some break im going. To im back to the school where we are from someone slashed the preachings. There was a group of. White radical muslims running around in the temple. In the space. And i think it was very. Of course it is a difficult climate to be controversial in this country because. You know that i feel that the controversies attacks are really generated for political reasons. Thats a political project in terms of wanting the country to be mean. And the middle east in particular in the muslims in particular to be a certain kind. Myleene a certain kind of muslim you know conservative traditional. I think with all fundamentalists and conservatives is a is about control conformity power and the having the sole power and authority to decide this is how you should think this is how you should act this is how you should paint. Or. I first came to london and once and for me. When you live in the militia you dont go to see the great god. The office the good myra you see the books magazines. What are you looking for when you see a piece of art. I dont look i feel you know its more a bar to the early in the piece makes you want your hearts skips a bit your mouth. Or even god im interested you know if i look at it and it doesnt do anything to my feelings that. You know i dont do much of. The brains in your book use of human soul. Surfer duction. Were any of the things. On the wall the theory of these. Connections got right. Theres nothing left. You know a lot of young art this looks like a place like this. One the success you know but behind the successes a lot of hard work a lot of disappointments and so you have to learn to handle all those you know none of the artist who shown here had an easy life you know if you look at. Those works or see in the last gallery you know the right to see. You know those were the early days of modernism you know and they have to struggle to find a language a new language to speak you know to get rid of representation. You know so they have to feel that were around and it was it wasnt easy and you know today you look at them theyre nice in this. Nice modern museum you know. The artwork looks like pristine on the wall you know the making of it is different. I think we. Can. Get slowly western digitals you know so even when i was in school we live in western art history. Theres very few we should not history even today. Thats history. And no one is really writing serious stuff about subjugation of combatants you are going to approach. That Historical Perspective i think its a shame. If youre not to. Go into. Western. Dear you see in them this is. When you put all these things that you grew up with. These are mostly more hindu theres a lot of mystical spiritual things that goes on you know you see she grew up we have the rituals and all that and how do you place that where do you place that because those things im not going to be acceptable. I love indian food so. Well you know its an all shell be good. Looking. Over the last almost yeah yeah you have to eat female condoms false women call them small yeah we should make it sweet make it sweet. Rebellion rebellious to be questionable you know. But i think a lot of kids dont understand that rebellion is a process you know it has to end up. In some sort of a conclusion you know who you rebel against something bad. But you have. The projection in mind to make things better you know you dont go through rubble but rebel because its special you know because. Remember this moment just. Its not a career. Youre a bell when you want to change that and. When thats you moving to beijing you see of course caused some conflicts. Its a way of gauging social executes the sense you feel news and me and use as pornographic i was in my ear the courage that he had you know to draw things that are not politically correct you know the blue dot the kings the new leads in you know and these i think that supposing he is a good muslim you know was not doing with selfclosing the raw self you know the conservatives within society but i think its irrelevant to him these are very important ways of challenging the notion of what comprises i think that. You are born and you made you die. And i dont think its. So much. An overt sexuality of the human body that duckies be occupied. You have to go on was a painting that triggered the new experience. I couldnt figure out how to make a painting with a new. You knew it was actually a direct response to a smile involved and so it is not something that is ignored in islam in fact is contemplated a great deal in in islam the nature of sexuality which is then related to the nature of being all of these can be fine and so if you stick to the shoes and at heart i think hes very much so if you speak painter. The reason hes not wearing any clothes is because i want him to be in this natural state so you do come out and fight him whether. Hes wearing western clothes always been closer or whether he saw this resort you know who he is so universal. It was something totally against islam. But then the works with member man to be about. The system it has elements of that but there was never meant to be a role to. Be there. When i first thought of a new series. Response as some people think im gay he. Was just trying to be here no. I dont for him find anything wrong with being gay. Some people thing. He. Very few people can connect to to something religious so was wrong with the erotic painting. But i dont see anything wrong with it and now if people one to choose to be offended by it then thats their right to be offended by it but they dont have the right to impose their values on people who dont share those values so you know i mean what more i teach they should be totally free. You know to paint what they want to paint always remember that some of the most erotic poetry that you have in the world today put it in but most in this. Dixon people like rumi have peace and i dont and i see that in this light. Although you know the brain thing is this painted by me. To complete the work it has to interact with. The public and giving the audience. The minimal of clues actually. So that you can open up your minds you know im giving you a lot of room to roll through to integrate. Religion and. For me the electorate and. Ive got some various traditional subjects in the works. The ballet dancer. Actually it is the next sauces and we shouldnt waltz music. It spoke form when someone is sick in the house it is banned by the boss government and plum time because its seen as a miss lovely. But. They still practice it today but it could be this other kind of things which which. Interest me you know that. Spiritual side of of this performances the dances the musicians you know the all. The dance drama form called them which is an all female form is very much rooted in the belief that we all possess animal spirits animal spirits and then define our own personalities so we may be eagle we may be. We could be a lion you could be a tiger we could be a wolf. And sometimes you know i mean like. A dirty little animal. Like the. Small dirty animal i saw it in the singapore you didnt want to take it all before. You know i was compelled to make this bobby rush. Into something that which isnt profound even and i can only do that if i inject myself into it i give this little animal my personality for many people of course its shocking because we have been severed of that mythological tradition and today you go to a large parts of Southeast Asia and particularly in malaysia not only are these kinds of myths. Not encouraged they are seriously abused and meet illegitimate. The current series im working on. Is. Built from the primordial god and. You have that thing within you that were mentioned is. Doing things beautifully. But then you have the other side of you you know the dark side. The more. Disturbing aspects of your personality that has to come out. In islam you know like in bali good and evil sits together. Both are creatures of god i see him within a continuum. Of artists who carry this primordial spirit that is very particular to this region when he paints he actually invokes an entire landscape of this of this place that has also very strong he still hind of spiritual memory. Well you and john meldrum. Only go to town leave it might be where i hang out. Im have the watch people even. After i was in the studio a load you know its nice to slow cool to please where. Theres a crowd. And this is my kind of guy. I know and everyone goes to see what my wife is sleeping and it fits nicely being that time for me is a stand especially because im a little. It was specially made it live you know you i dont get phone poles. So its my this is the time i have for myself actually yeah late at night after midnight when everyone is asleep during the you know thats my time. Was. This particular series with the sunni and it will disappear series was a series which i wanted to do especially on on on j. V. Is a tall because at least once in my career i would like to acknowledge you know the town where i grew up in where i was born. With disappear into the studio you started from the streets. And into their dailies behind the streets. It just records the life. People who are on the fringes of society. Oh i dont thing. I like to enjoy it was i mean molly mostly it. Is just a place well i was born you know i grew up here its a small town with a simple life. The town is growing also i might have to move. But. You know. Is where i was born and i like being here i dont like the big cities. Oh oh. This is actually a lot of studies which i did so i go on coachmen city. We were traveling with a group of indonesian artists we ran around saigon looking for a model but we couldnt find any you know but in the hand. We found a couple of models and in a brothel actually. Who was she who believed to pose for us. I dont normally do female nudes. I dont have much of a choice. When youre drawing in the nude you know naturally the offices and comes into it you know. And here i think i tried to capture. That sense reality but very quickly. In malaysia although its a fairly conservative country and you have. An obvious what you call the moral police you know it ensure everyone behaves. You know i mean ive been drawing and painting newts for years and. Theyre never bored with me. The female new its just not anything new within it. Is has been growing new and sentries but its just that here in this country people get a bit a bit sensitive. I would prefer drawing the female rather than me i said to see. One nice to see a nude man life in front of you was. My children. They go to school. I know what each school you know but he needs a good look at you know when to come home with me. Because im going. To get an. Alternate view. And i still go all the stuff exposing them to the little things. Talk to them and. Sort of. About susan. And especially about. Not being afraid to explore. Or not to be afraid of other. Religion. A muslim but still be a man who. As dot. Com the she transformed her life story into and megahit on the. Twenty four year old singer songwriter alice merton and her song no roots. Got up shes a winner of the twenty eighteen year can border breakers award so we know you can. Im a catholic sports in thirty minutes on the w. Ws Program Guide on. The highlights with the whole. Dot com highlights. Are you up to speed on the latest technology. Know when it may be time for an upgrade this becomes part of the future become a sign board. Im a cyborg so ive dreamed of a new sense an a new organ and design my perception of reality implants that make every day life easier. I use my implants on a daily basis that optimize the shoeman body and connect people more effectively. I hope that this will make us more ethical persons if we have a greater understanding for each other. 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